Obelisk
The obelisk is a support structure, formerly known as the dark pylon. Time Bomb is now known as the Temporal Rift and is cast by the High Templar. Plasma Surge is no longer in the multiplayer version of the game, but will still be in the editor. The Dark Pylon is now known as the Obelisk - primarily because it no longer cloaks units and no longer provides pylon power/supply. This change was mostly due to balance, since it is relatively easy to spam Dark Pylons everywhere and instantly have a Psi Storm recharge point to decimate incoming forces. Karune. 2009-06-08. Lack of EMP = more Archons? (post 11) Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-06-09.Yup, EMP is currently on the Ghost and does 100 shield damage to all units and drains all energy in that area of effect. Having a Ghost presence in any TvP match up is crucial, especially if there are casters in the opponent's army. In the original StarCraft, the EMP used to kill all shield hit points, but since in StarCraft II the ability has been added to the Ghost, which is more easily attainable unit than in the original StarCraft, we have reduced it's potency a bit. Plus a one-click ability that reduces an opposing army to half health near instantly isn't something that we want to promote. To combat EMP, Protoss players have huge new additions to their arsenal that can help them attack, defend, and buy time for tactical retreats (to allow shields to recharge since they recharge 2x as fast as the original StarCraft). These new additions would include but are not limited to: Force Field (Disruptor), Temporal Rift (previously known as Time Bomb) (High Templar), Colossus AoE lasers (with upgradable range), Phase Shift (Disruptor), Shield Regeneration (added to Obelisk previously as the Dark Pylon replacing 'cloak'). Karune. 2009-06-08. Lack of EMP = more Archons? (post 8) Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-06-09. It was long used only by the Dark Templar of Shakuras, but was made available to other factions as the war for survival became more desperate. Abilities All abilities are present as soon as the obelisk can be produced.Karune. 2009-02-18. StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 49 (page 3). Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-02-18. Development As a dark pylon, the obelisk was similar to a pylon. It provided psi and power to protoss buildings like the pylon, but also has special abilities.Karune. 2009-02-18. StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 49. Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-02-18. However, Blizzard was not entirely happy with the dark pylon in February 2009, as they felt Null Shield was uncompetitive.Good thread. =) I agree that the Protoss mechanic is the least interesting of the 3. There is not a ton of tension right now on the abilities. Argus Link is really good, but Null Shield sees little use. Compared that to MULE vs. Comsat or the Queen's abilities and the Dark Pylon lacks choices (there is only one right choice most of the time). We will probably attack this by attacking balance and then the Dark Pylon's other abilities first and if that fails go from there with some new mechanics. Cavez. 2009-02-23. Fix the New Protoss Mechanic. Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-02-23. Early versions of the dark pylon cloaked surrounding structures.Leord. 2008-07-01. WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 2. StarCraft Wire. Accessed 2008-07-03. Its purpose was to hide a protoss player's tech tree and cloak photon cannons until they began firing, but it was removed from the multiplayer game as it wasn't useful enough. The Dark Pylon is not in the multiplayer version of the game. Originally, when it was being tested, it would cloak buildings in a radius around the building, making it more difficult for enemies to scout out 'tech' buildings in a Protoss base, to determine how they were teching. Additionally, it also hid base defenses until they began firing. The Dark Pylon was taken out because it was not found as useful as what was intended. There are discussions of finding a possible replacement building that would also serve as a base defense, but nothing has been confirmed yet. Karune. 2008-08-25. Blizzard, is the dark pylon still in? StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2008-08-26. The Dark Templar were set to have more defensive structures as of March 2008.Leord. 2008-07-01. WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 2. StarCraft Wire. Accessed 2008-07-03. The obelisk no longer has a cloaking ability. As of February 2010, the obelisk lost Argus Link and Proton Charge.Photon Charge was removed in the previous build and so was Argus Link. This means that both of them are out in the current build. Kapeselus. 2010-02-02. Mining Question (post 7). Battle.net StarCraft II Gameplay Discussion Forum. Accessed 2010-02-02. These core protoss macromanagement mechanic was moved to the nexus.CoTweet. 2010-02-08. The #StarCraft2 protoss core macro ability has moved to the nexus. #SCUpdate. Twitter (StarCraft). Accessed 2010-02-08. References Category: Protoss Technology